The Doorway and the Deep (31 page)

Oliver grimaced. “I wasn't sure I should worry him just yet. I'm sure you know how frustrating correspondence like that can be, even when it's good news. This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.”

“That's very martyr-like of you, Ollie,” said Fife. “True to form.”

There was a loud cough at the doorway. It was the white-haired boy.

“'Scuse me,” he said. “Rebel Gem has requested an audience with the Heir of Fiske.”

All eyes turned to Lottie. “Um,” she said. “Just me?”

“Yes,” said the boy, staring at his feet.

“
And
an audience with her most illustrious royal guest, Fife Dulcet,” said Fife. “I think you forgot that part of the message.”

“I—I didn't forget anything,” said the white-haired boy, looking nervous.

“He's just joking,” Eliot said kindly.

“You know what this means, Lottie,” said Fife. “You're growing up, turning into an important public figure.”

He dabbed at a fake tear, and Lottie rolled her eyes, though she was grateful for the joke. It gave her something else to focus on besides the nervous feeling in her stomach.
What did Rebel Gem want with just her? They hadn't parted on the best of terms.

“Rebel Gem said to come immediately,” said the white-haired boy.

“All right, all right,” said Lottie, getting down from the bed. She cast one look at the others. Eliot was giving her a thumbs-up. Oliver's eyes were a reassuring green. Fife and Adelaide were already arguing again.

“You'd think she could wait a little longer,” Lottie told the boy as they walked the passageway. It wasn't that Lottie particularly wanted to talk to the white-haired boy, but she was desperate for something to stave off the jitters. “I only just got to see my friends. And half the time, I've been worried they'd drowned.”

The white-haired boy glared ahead. “Some of 'em did,” he said. “Or do you even care what happened to the others?”

Lottie slowed her pace. In all the excitement, she'd been forgetting something: Reeve. Nash. She hadn't asked what had happened to them. Now she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

“Guess those other Northerlies aren't worth your concern, Heir of Fiske.”

Lottie flinched at the words. She hurried to fall back in step with the boy. He turned his face away from her, but it was too late. She'd seen. He was crying. She stopped walking altogether. He did, too, and scrubbed his face.

“You knew one of them, didn't you?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” he said after a long pause. “Nash was my brother.”

Lottie felt faint. She didn't know what to say. All this while, she'd never once stopped to consider the white-haired boy's story. He had waited on her for days and nights, and Lottie hadn't even tried to learn his
name
. Nash was his brother. Nash, who had tried to murder her. Did the boy know that? If he didn't, Lottie couldn't possibly tell him now.

“He was very brave,” she said at last. “A hero, really. He fought the ice crawler, trying to save the rest of us. He mentioned you, too. You could tell by the way he talked that he loved his brother very much and would do anything for him.”

It wasn't the full truth, but Lottie didn't think the truth was what the white-haired boy needed right now.

“Really?” he whispered.

“Really.”

The white-haired boy nodded limply.

“By the way,” said Lottie, “I'm afraid I never learned your name. It's—?”

The boy's eyes darkened. “Thwaite,” he said crisply.

Then he resumed his walking. Lottie followed in guilt-ridden silence until she noticed Thwaite leading her up a steep, narrow passageway she didn't recognize.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Thwaite didn't give an answer, and Lottie didn't press for one. Thwaite shouldn't have been on duty at a time like this,
she thought. He needed rest and to be around friends who loved him. Did he have friends like that?

The new passageway turned into a steep stairway, which they climbed all the way to an opening to the outside world. They passed two guards on their way out and then emerged at the crest of a hill. From this height, Lottie could see an orange sun kissing the horizon, its rays spread out over the swaying heads of pines and oaks. It was a beautiful sight, but Lottie felt uneasy.

“Where's Rebel Gem?” she asked, turning to Thwaite.

“Just a little farther this way.”

They descended the hill and entered a thick wood. Lottie followed Thwaite's path through the trees until they reached the mouth of another cave. Lottie recognized the enchanted torch burning at the entrance, lighting the inscription inside:
MOST REVERED HOUSE OF FISKE
.

“She wants to meet me
here
?” Lottie asked. She was trying to right her disoriented sense of place.

“Yes,” said Thwaite. He was shivering. “She's just inside.”

Lottie peered into the shadows. She felt movement at her side, then heard the flap of wings. Trouble had emerged from her pocket and, without so much as a tweet, he soared out of sight.

“Trouble!” Lottie cried. “Trouble, come back here!”

It was no use. He had disappeared into the wood.

Lottie felt in her other pocket, for her mother's ring. It
was just a dark hallway. She'd been down it before. Why was she suddenly so afraid? She closed her fingers around the silk-covered ring and took a steady breath. She stepped inside. She hurried down the passageway, toward the enchanted torchlight at its end. She stepped into the room of statues and glass cases. She didn't realize that Thwaite hadn't followed her inside. She didn't see the two red-cloaked guards close in behind her. Not at first. She was too distracted by another sight.

A woman stood before her, dressed in a cloak. But it wasn't Rebel Gem.

She was tall. Her hair was as light as Rebel Gem's was dark. Her shoulders were broad and her eyes over-wide, and she shared Lottie's open stare. She stood behind one of the glass cases, its door ajar. It was the case that had contained the lapis lazuli ring.

“Hello, Lottie,” she said.

Lottie knew that voice. She'd heard it in the dark woods of Wisp Territory.

When Lottie turned to run, she saw the two Southerly guards blocking her path. They stared ahead, impassive, heavy maces in hand.

Think
, Lottie told herself.
Think
.

Slowly, she turned back around.

“Hello, Iolanthe,” she said, trying her best to sound unafraid.

“Then you know who I am?” Iolanthe arched a brow.

“You're the king's new right-hand sprite,” Lottie said. “You invaded Wisp Territory, and you cut down their apple tree. You sent out assassins to kill me.”

Iolanthe's face was solemn. It looked like a face that had never, ever laughed.

“Do you know why I'm here now?” she asked.

Lottie swallowed hard. “Because you want to kill me.”

“You've caused the Southerly King an inordinate amount of trouble, Lottie Fiske. We're going to put an end to that today.”

Iolanthe stepped out from behind the glass case, and Lottie saw the thin sword in her hand, its blade drawn to a sharp point.

Do something!
her mind shouted.
Remember what Rebel Gem told you: you could use your touch to hurt her. This is a last resort. It's your life on the line. So do
something,
before she turns you into a pincushion!

But Lottie just took a step back. The guards reacted. One jabbed the end of his mace into her back. Lottie cried out from the pain.

“Don't,” she said. “Please,
don't
.”

Iolanthe stepped closer, examining Lottie as though she were nothing more than a turkey in need of carving.

“Don't worry,” she said. “It will be over soon.”

Lottie shut her eyes.

She waited for the pain.

For a moment, the room was utterly silent. Then came the clatter of metal.

Lottie's eyes fluttered back open.

Iolanthe was reeling.

“I can't see,” she said. Then, in a shout, “I can't see!
Get her
.”

But the guards weren't in a better position. They were feeling around blindly in the air, as though the room had been cast in darkness. One grazed Lottie's shoulder, but she shook free and ran. She ran as fast as her feet could take her down the passageway, only to stumble straight into Thwaite. Lottie yelped and hurtled away from him, but Thwaite ran after her into the wood.

“Wait!” he called, hard on her heels. “Not that way!”

He grabbed her arm, and Lottie tried to break free but instead fell to her knees.

“Don't touch me!” she yelled, still struggling. “You let Iolanthe into the court. You were going to let her kill me!”

Lottie understood it all now. Thwaite
had
known what his brother planned to do on that boat. He'd known, and now he was trying to finish the job.

But Thwaite was shaking his head.

“I'm sorry,” he choked out. “I thought I was doing the right thing. Nash told me—”

There were shouts from the cave. Running footsteps. Whatever had blackened the vision of Iolanthe and her soldiers was now apparently gone. Whatever it had been . . .

“You,” she said, staring at Thwaite. “Was that
you
? Your keen?”

“I changed my mind. I'm sorry. Now c'mon. We've got to run.
This
way.”

He helped Lottie up, and together they ran deeper into the wood, where night was fast choking away the remaining sunlight. Already, it was colder out, and Lottie's face stung from the whipping wind. She saw lights glowing ahead, at the peak of the hill they were climbing. Lottie hurried her steps toward them. She emerged from the grip of the wood and ran still higher up the bank of the hill, toward the looming boulders that bordered the supping lawn.

She could hear shouts up ahead.

They've begun the supper festivities early tonight
, she thought.

“We have to find Rebel Gem and warn her,” said Lottie. “Do you know how many—”

But Thwaite was no longer by her side. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Thwaite?” Lottie whispered.

There was a whistling sound in the dark. Lottie's head was knocked sideways with sudden pain. She touched her ear. Something wet was trickling from its ridge: blood. She
looked around, frantic. Then she spotted it, glinting in the moonlight, lodged in the muddy hillside. It was a silver arrow.

Lottie heard it again—that strange whistling sound, only this time fainter and farther off. Another arrow sailed through the air. Then another. She sank to a crouch and, keeping her eyes upward, scrambled up the hill, toward the shelter of one of the boulders.

She had been mistaken. The shouts she'd heard were not shouts of merriment, and the metal clangs were not that of chalice against chalice but of
sword against sword
. This wasn't a feast. This was a battle.

Lottie thought of Eliot, of Fife and Oliver and Adelaide. Her brain pounded with terrible images of what could be happening inside the cave. Her mind ordered her to move, to run, to search for the others, but her leg muscles had gone as stiff as hardened glue.

“Move,” she said, a command she'd grown so used to in the past days. “
Move
.”

Life slowly returned to her joints, but just as Lottie was about to make a run for it, something yanked at her coat collar, sending her legs sprawling out under her. Lottie flailed, swatting at her captor, but a hot, sweat-coated hand clamped over her mouth.

“If you scream, Fiske, I swear to Oberon . . .”

It was Dorian Ingle.

Lottie shook her head, a promise to be quiet. Dorian removed his hand from her mouth.

“W-what's happening?” she asked.

“Southerlies” was the grunted reply. “Somehow they breached our defenses.”

I know how
, Lottie thought, wondering again where Thwaite could be.

“But they can't just do that,” Lottie said. “That's basically declaring war, isn't it?”

“Look, Fiske, I'd love to delve into a discussion about the political ramifications, but what I'd like best is for us to get out of this alive. Agreed?”

“A-agreed.”

Lottie found herself being raised to her feet with the help of strong arms beneath her own.

“Listen closely,” Dorian said against her ear. “Stay with me. I can hear where the enemy is. We're going to follow the boulders until we reach the cave. Then we'll make a run for it.”

“Why are we going
inside
the caves?” said Lottie.

“Do you want to join up with your friends, or not?”

“It just seems like—”

“Save it, Fiske. Do you understand what we're going to do?”

Lottie nodded doggedly.

“On second thought . . .” Dorian stooped. He motioned to his back.

“Climb up,” he said. “I'll carry you.”

Lottie felt the absurd urge to laugh. “You want me to
piggyback
?”

“Faster that way. And no chance of you running off. Get on.”

Lottie climbed on Dorian's back and wrapped her arms about his neck. He rose to his full height, and Lottie felt a surge of adrenaline.

“Right,” said Dorian. “Here goes. Sorry in advance if I get us killed.”

He set off. They ran along the curved line of the boulders. The sounds of cries and clashing metal filled Lottie's ears. She soon felt her hands going slick with sweat. Then her vision blackened, and for a terrified moment Lottie thought she had fallen from Dorian's back and into unconscious oblivion.

But this wasn't oblivion, for Lottie could still hear sounds, now compounded by the echoes of stone walls. They'd made it inside the cave.